Workmen's advocate., 1887-01-29

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 The understandable chain of economic phenomena :" Indeed more striking expression could not have been found True the capitalist rulers of labor are not prevented by it from heaping capital upon capital, but heavily does the 'chain of economic phenomena" press upon the laboring class. Yet, even here the poets word proves true;
 There dwellcth Il spirit of Good mall Evil"
 The ruling industrial system. by mak- ing indispensable the assemhlage of masses of workers at one point, gives the first impulse to the removal of the evil itself has created. As man first sees his own features in the mirror, so the labor er first awakens to full appreciation of his own pitiable situation when, in the misery of masses of his comrades in suf- fering the image of his own lut stares him in the face sharing the life of his companions in toll, men placed like him self and equally oppressed, in constant constact and exchange of thought with them, working together for reciprocal support and the common defense against common danger. there arises q class con sci0usness which sustains and elevates the individvual and inspires the masses to battle for their social rights, It is d strange fate which decrres that capitalist production itself shall assemble and drill the powers destined to make an end of capitalist and class rule.
 From the great central rallying places of industry (the Labor Movement-has proceeded) which within few decades has spread from England over France Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, and has attained power and definite form in the foundation of the International Workingmen Association. Every where we see unions forming whose ob- ject is the improvement of the material condition of the Laboring Class; crafts mems guilds and workingmen's clubs. educational and beneficial associations, cooperative, loap and credit societies, trades unions and o-operatlve-manufac turing companies Under the prevail ing conditions of credit and production all these undertakings originating in the working class and resting upon the prin- ciple of self-help must prove powerless to cure the misery of the masses. But they have accomplished a vast work for | the intellectual and moral elevation of the Laboring Class and in paving the way for a thorough reform of labor. The true significance of these associa- tions, their value which cannot be over estimated lies in this that, wholly apart from the especial object at which they aim, they are a school for self culture for their members; that they confer upon these skill in the independent manage ment of their own affairs and in harmO- niolls action with others for common ends; that by education, promotion of a comprehension of business and fraternal public spirit they prepare the worker | for gradual transition from the pre- vailing Wage-System to the cooperative method of production of the future.
 It was the spirit of cooperation which in the the Middle Ages raised the work ing middle class to SO high level of culture and prosperity, of power and 1 consequence. The re-awakening of the spirit of cooperation in our day will bear similar and still more precious fruit, not for one class alone but for the whole human society. The Labor Question as we apprehend it. is no mere stomach and money question, it is a question of l When our saving of State and Society, | the glorious achievements of our policy of blood and iron like lost tradi- ton shall long have been forgotten, it will be remembered to the credit of our time that it quickened and cherished the spirit of cooperation, the germ of htl- man greatness and virtue in the labor ing world so laying the foundation for a new and truly moral social life which shall rest upon the principle of equality and fraternity. The founding of the smallest workingmen's club will he for the historian of Civilization of greater worth than-the victory of Sadowa
 Let us pass to the second question: What has the employer, the capital-